Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Robert Robinson, a Protestant preacher in London and Cambridge in the mid-eighteenth century, penned the hopeful and imploring lyrics of "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" when only 23 years old. But a well-known story suggests that his later life was fraught with despair. One day Robinson encountered a woman studying this hymn in her hymnal. She asked him what he thought of the hymn, and Robinson replied, "Madam, I am the poor, unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."

Robinson's text is usually paired with the hymn tune "Nettleton," which was first published in Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second, a very popular collection produced by Pennsylvania publisher John Wyeth in 1813.

The term "Ebenezer" in verse two is a figurative reference to recognizing God's help in one's life. (See 1 Samuel 7:12 where it is used as a token of gratitude for deliverance.)